


The Fourth Stage of Grief

by namedanonymous



Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 18:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5676307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/namedanonymous/pseuds/namedanonymous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of John Laurens' death, sleep only leads to more pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fourth Stage of Grief

The line of his pen wavers in and out of uncertain vision, but Alexander ignores it as best he can, fingers moving in the ceaseless motions of a’s and t’s that barely register through the numbness that spreads to fingers and toes. His body begs for sleep with its blurry vision and lethargic movements, but his mind cringes from what horrors those heavy vestiges might hold -----what he knows they hold in their sharp claws. He has already been well acquainted during the day with the images that haunt him when lids drift closed and mind is allowed to drift on the tides of sleep, and he does not desire to see them again. Because every time, he wakes up with a pounding heart and a scream on his tongue that is just barely bitten back. because the things he sees when he’s awake are vivid enough he does not need the lucid reality of dreams as well.

 _Oh_ , there are images that he does crave; the ones between the screaming and blood that are gentle and full of warmth and smiles ( calloused hands that are too kind and ingrained with a passion to rival his----- ). But even those dreams are more akin to nightmares, for despite nostalgic images they are not devoid of pain. ( He wakes from those with a numb heart and hollow soul -----too fervently reminded of what never quite was and what never will be ). If anything, it is these gentle memories with their seductive promise of a future that will never come, that stick with unwanted stubbornness to his psyche and refuse to dislodge easily no matter how much paper and ink he tears through.

The mess he is now mirrors the days of the war, though perhaps in the present he has spiraled even lower ( he was still alive during the era of cannon shots and gun fire, after all; still there with a safe embrace when the night got cold and ice stole under their blankets; still there with a deluge of ideas to rival his own ). He fights a different war within himself, now; one where his pen and words and unhealthy inadvertence to sleep are his failing weapons to defeat a grief that runs even deeper than the repercussions of his mother’s death ( his mother had not been so deeply ingrained in the very language of his SOUL ). Dark splotches stain in dramatic circles under hollow, empty eyes that have lost their spark of summer, and clothing hangs rumpled from paralyzed limbs, testimony to nights when his body finally wins in the eternal battle for much needed rest. Ink permanently stains pads of fingers and cuffs of sleeves in the way his death has been seared into his brain, ink smudged and dotted across piles of papers that speak of everything from finance to foreign policy to slavery -----everything but the one subject his thoughts want to cling to like moth to flames.

( He wishes he could feel something more than empty ).

Eliza makes life bearable with her gentle glow that keeps him from retreating too far into the dark. There are more days than not where he never sets foot outside his office, but Eliza comes and there is soup and bread and sometimes a bit of meat on a tray, emitting what probably is a delicious effervescence -----too bad everything smells like smoke and tastes like ash. He feeds on ink instead, carving out lines upon lines into his skin and parchment in an infinite cycle of emotion. His pen scribbles with a desperation that contrasts with the passionate fervor that had taken him in the war -----he writes now like a man trying to survive, like a man who cannot live without scripting during every second of every day. Fingers do not seek to capture time though; he writes to forget. the sun sets without his noticing and she takes the food away when it grows cold ( untouched, uneaten ), her hand a tender weight on his shoulder and concern sparking in her eyes when she asks him to come to bed. Alexander lets the scratch of his quill in his silence answer for him, for throat is too constricted to speak. _can’t, can’t, can’t, can’t._  Still, _still_ , he must write to purge his mind of these memories he does not _want_. Blue eyes turned hollow cannot even deign to meet her sympathetic ones; he does not want to see her concern; he does not _deserve it_.

( He wishes he could be comforted by her touch as he slept, but waking once to loving arms that weren’t the ones he desire had been enough -----even as he had stolen away to his desk, guilt had stole into his heart to settle heavily next to the numbness of grief ).

 _Oh_ , how Alexander wishes between the dark curves of j’s and l’s and trembling fingers that struggle to hold his pen steady even as his thoughts are anything but; he wishes to reverse the rotation of the earth, to go back in time and beg harder for him to lay down his sword; he wishes that sleep will forsake him for the rest of his life if it means not suffering through dreams that are memories that are nightmares-----

\-----his pen slips from between shaking fingers, sketching an unsightly line down the strip of parchment. His characterizing grace is absent now, stolen away by fatigue who stole it from exhaustion who stole it from lines of sinew. Head collapses over limp arms in the manner of a body with no strength to go on, and unconsciousness seizes his prone form, though in the deep recesses of his psyche, the calm exterior of a man finally surrendered to sleep couldn’t be more of a lie. Eyes fall closed and memories creep from their hiding places in the winkles of his brain, to be turned to dreams to nightmares to torture an aching soul, and Alexander is _screaming_.

There is _no_ **god** watching tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a line if you like!


End file.
